A number of benefits can be achieved using a medium which can readily and economically provide both mastered content and the ability to write or record information. As used herein, “mastered” content means content provided on the medium before it reaches the user. A common example is music CD's in which the music is mastered prior to distribution to users. Information written onto the same medium containing mastered content can be useful, e.g., in any of a number of systems for accounting for or collecting usage fees, royalties or similar charges for use of proprietary intellectual property in such content, including systems involving use of the Internet (or other communications systems), thus effectively providing a device which is not only an electronic book, music or multimedia player or similar content-output device, but also effectively an Internet appliance (i.e., an apparatus which can operate, at least partially, in connection with information obtained using the Internet or similar communication system).
Other potential benefits from a practical and economic mastered/writeable medium or media player includes the ability to annotate, supplement, update, correct or otherwise supplement or modify the mastered data with new or additional data. Accordingly, it would be useful to provide a system apparatus and/or process which is practical and economical for both mastering of content and writing of content or other data on the same medium.
Many previous attempts to provide mastered and writeable portions on the same medium have encountered or resulted in various problems. Some data storage media are pre-recorded only in a serial fashion, such that it is not possible or feasible to produce the entire content at one time. A typical example is the pre-recording of audio tapes which, even if recorded at high speed and/or simultaneously recording multiple tracks, were generally recorded serially, i.e., beginning at one physical end of the tape and recorded along the length of the tape to the other end. In general, the amount of time required for such serial pre-recording can render the process substantially economically unattractive. Accordingly, it would be useful to provide a system, apparatus and method involving both mastered and writeable portions wherein the mastered content is provided in the medium substantially all at once.
Many systems that involve writeable media are unsuitable for long-term or secure storage, either because the written information is re-writeable (e.g., typical CD-RW media) or because the information tends to degrade in a relatively short time period (or both). Accordingly it would be useful to provide a system, apparatus and method involving both mastered and writeable portions in which, if desired, the writeable portions can be provided in a form which is not re-writeable or erasable, and/or which is relatively long-lived, so as to provide archival information storage, e.g., storage for about ten years or more substantially without information loss.
Although there are techniques for mastering content all at once (such as stamping or pressing of vinyl audio recordings or injection molding of compact disks (CDs) and the like), the techniques and materials used in these processes are generally different from those used for providing writeable areas. Although it is possible to provide, e.g., a dye-based or other writeable optical disk with some data thereon pre-recorded, typically the pre-recorded data on a dye-based CD must be serially recorded. Accordingly, previous approaches, in order to provide both parallel-written, mastered content and writeable areas were required to have different regions for these two different types of areas and different materials and techniques, such as an optical disk having an inner radial area with molded mastered content and an outer radial area with writeable dye media. Media with two different regions of material have proved to be expensive and unreliable to produce. Moreover, the techniques, machinery and materials for producing such a two-medium storage device would typically predetermine the relative amount of mastered, versus writeable, area and thus was relatively inflexible such that changing the relative proportion of mastered and writeable area would require substantial retooling or redesign of fabrication processes. Accordingly it would be useful to provide a system, apparatus and method achieving parallel-written mastered material and writeable regions on a single-medium substrate, preferably such that the materials and techniques for the two areas used for forming the two areas are substantially the same, with the areas differing substantially only as to whether the region has content molded (or otherwise mastered) therein.
Furthermore, many systems require different sets or ranges of optical parameters for reading mastered data versus reading later-written data and/or for reading mastered data versus writing data. In some cases this means that two or more sets of optical apparatus (such as two different wavelengths of laser, powers of laser, optical trains or optical arms or the like) must be provided in a single playback and/or read/write drive. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide an apparatus system and method using a medium which has both parallel-written mastered data and writeable areas, but which can be used (for reproduction and/or writing) using a single optical train or optical arm, a single and/or a single wavelength of light.
In many situations, a person who annotates text (or other content) cannot effectively position or store the annotations so that they appear adjacent to, or otherwise related to, the text to which they refer. In some situations, annotations are not readily found or accessible. Accordingly, it would be useful to provide a system, apparatus and method which provides for annotations of mastered content in such a fashion that the user can control the positioning, association and/or relationship to mastered content, and/or can readily and conveniently index, search, link, modify or otherwise use and manipulate annotations or other later-written content.
In general, it would be useful to provide an apparatus, system and method which can readily provide for accounting or payment of royalties for proprietary intellectual property and/or provide annotations, updates, supplements, corrections or other later-written, i.e., (not mastered) content in a fashion which is practical and economical. It would be advantageous to provide apparatus, systems and methods for playing or reproducing both prerecorded and later-written content or data, on such medium in a manner which is economical, lightweight, small and otherwise convenient. It would be particularly advantageous to provide an apparatus for use in connection with such medium which was sufficiently small and lightweight as to be practical for use in or with a personal electronic device (PED).